"La planète sous surveillance" ("Planet under surveillance"), an article in the September 2007 climate change issue of Science & Vie (Science & Life), mentions the Sondrestrom lidar facility and its role in stratospheric and mesospheric studies of the polar regions.

During June 2007, a crew from Greenlandic TV station KNR visited the site for a tour and filming.

Nine members of the Committee on Science and Technology, US Congress House of Representatives, visited the site in July 2007. They were especially interested in the facility's support of research funded by NSF, NASA, and NOAAthree agencies for which they have oversight. The visitors included many spouses and aides, as well as Dr. Arden Bement, Director of NSF.

Our lidar measurement of a noctilucent cloud showing effects of gravity waves is featured on SpaceWeather.com in August 2007.

The National Institute of Aerospace documented the recent Greenland Space Science Symposium, and has developed tools for educators to use in teaching about space weather, Greenland, the sun-earth connection, and other facets of polar research. These tools, as well as interviews with symposium participants and links to other resources, are available on the Nortel LearniT educational Web site.

Science teacher and documentarian Sharon Bowers, of the National Institute of Aerospace, attended the Greenland Space Science Symposium with a videographer, and accounts the visit in her Weblog.

In the 12 May 2007 issue of The Economist, science journalist Anna Petherick writes about the magnetosphere, space weather, and the Greenland Space Science Symposium. Anna's Greenland visit is also described in the Correspondent's Diary.

In October 2006 the site hosted a high school intern for two weeks. Emil Frederiksen, a student in Sisimiut, is shown here using an oscilloscope to look at a dual 4-bit binary counting circuit he built, with design help from one of the site engineers. He also assisted our site mechanic with maintenance of the site power plant, vehicle repairs, and heavy equipment operation. Emil wrote a report each day of his activities and made a presentation at school about his two-week stay.

A group of adventurers from Britain, Finland, and Poland crossed the ice cap on skis, traveling from Ammassalik, on the East Coast, to Kangerlussuaq in 30 days. The woman in a wheelchair used a specialized ski-chair with ski poles for power. The group enjoyed their tour of the facility on a warm day, as noted in their weblog.

Six graduate students  from Cornell University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Colorado, Boulder  visit the facility and perform lidar and radar experiments. More...

"The Foreigner" is presented at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Gold Medal Competition for Young Artists. More...

Katrina Bossert, a graduate student from the University of Colorado, Boulder, is on-site for almost a month running the lidar systems. She's shown here enjoying the first class seats on the way north.

APR2011

Additional channels added to the RADAC system allowing for a lot more flexibility, including simultaneous measurements of both the up- and down-shifted plasma lines, raw data sampling, the addition of light-ion measurements concurrent with standard operating modes, etc.

MAR2011

Up-converter installed, ready to let the transmitter be controlled by the RADAC (RAdar Data ACquisition) system, and also allowing for sampling of the transmitted pulses.

Robert Michell and Marilia Samara, both from Southwest Research Institute, have installed a narrow-field imager for the season. Lots of radar operations with the new tube.

NOV2010

The new CPI klystron arrives and is installed. Data acquisition begins with baking and tuning on 13 November.

Katey Anthony and assistant visit from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and collect data for their study on methane trapped in lake ice.

OCT2010

Making preparations for receiving and installing the new klystron.

SEP2010

Adam Tishman, a recent employee of the Space Physics Research Lab at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL, agreed to spend three weeks scraping paint at the site. Adam seemed to enjoy his "paid vacation," topped with a trip to the ice cap.

We have a new vehicle! The used Land Cruiser from Nuuk was just delivered from the ship.

AUG2010

Subreflector brought down to the high-bay and patched and resurfaced.

JUL2010

Christian departs, back to Denmark. Best wishes to him and many thanks for his contributions over four years at the site.

JUN2010

Susanne Toball, a graduate student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, visits for a week collecting particle samples for her dissertation.

MAY2010

CPI tells us they have had a failure in the assembly process of the new tube. It will not be ready for delivery in June, as planned, but we are hopeful it will be ready in August.

APR2010

The old Lytton klystron has failed. The performance of this tube had been slowly degrading since it was re-installed in late August. Each time the system was brought up, it requqired two operators for many hours before it stabilized enough to allow the normal one-person operation. As a result, we have been scheduling the experiment to be contiguous, as much as possible. Unfortunately, this tube cannot be rebuilt again. We are off the air until the new klystron is delivered, hopefully in June. Major maintenance tasks are being scheduled to take advantage of this downtime.

Site crew provides assistance to the University of Colorado, Boulder, and NOAA campaign for validating their new lidar system, CAPABL (Cloud and Aerosol, Polarization and Backscatter Lidar), before it's deployed to Summit Camp.

Anja and Ryan Neely (a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder) join Eggert in hosting a field experiment with students from Qinnguata atuarfia (the local school). The students participated in both lidar measurements and launching the balloons for the NOAA balloon-sonde measurements.

JAN2010

Injectors replaced in E3 (the 600 kW generator-set that powers the ISR).

DEC2009

The National Space Center at Denmark's Technical University (DTU) has now taken over the Greenland magnetometer chain, as well as some of the other instruments DMI had deployed locally. These are now under the direction of our old friend Dr. Eigel Friis-Christensen and we are looking forward to many years of fruitful collaboration.

NOV2009

Run scheduled in conjunction with the new RISR-N (northward looking AMISR at Resolute Bay, Canada) in response to a predicted solar Corotation Interaction Region.

OCT2009

New engine replaces 26-year old original. This is one of two "house power" diesel generators, 180 kW each, used alternately to provide 24/7 power to the facility.

SEP2009

The Lytton klystron tube has been resurrected. After two weeks off-line to reconfigure the modulator socket, plumbing and electronics (and baking and tuning!), we are back on the air with the old spare klystron in ample time to perform the 10-day Equinox Wind Reversal world day run.

AUG2009

Anja Strømme takes over as Principal Investigator!

The CPI klystron has failed. This tube cannot be rebuilt again so the old Lytton tube will be installed. Fortunately, a new CPI klystron was ordered earlier this month with the special stimulus funding. It's scheduled for delivery June 2010.

Upgrades done by visitors on the HF Imaging system (Dartmouth College) and the CCD Spectrograph (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University).

JUL2009

Eggert returns to Kellyville and resumes his position as site supervisor. He and Christian again team up with their EE design and implementation skills.

JUN2009

The German ambassador to Denmark, Dr. Christoph Jessen, and some of his staff come to Kellyville for a tour of the facility and instruments, including the German Weather Service particle samplers the site supports. As a thank you, Christian is hosted at a formal dinner.

MAY2009

New RADAC (RAdar Data ACquisition) system now on-line with three channels. This was concurrent with several modifications to the front-end of the receive path. The RADAC system was developed for the AMISRs and is used at PFISR and RISR-N. The addition of three more digital receiver channels is planned, which will allow for simultaneous measurements of both the up- and down-shifted plasma lines and the addition of light-ion measurements concurrent with the standard operating modes.

APR2009

The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) announces it has decided to withdraw from their activities in the field of geomagnetism, to be finalized by the end of this year.

MAR2009

The IPY (International Polar Year) which began in March 2007 has now ended. The 30-hour bi-weekly runs that we've been doing, coordinated with the other high-latitude ISRs, are now complete.

FEB2009

No Stratospheric Warming event has occurred this month, so no 10-day world day run for that.

JAN2009

Welcome aboard to John Fremming! John is a certified electrician from Denmark and will be a welcome addition to the crew.

Two members of the Danish Parliament come to the site and have a tour.

OCT2008

Troubleshooting some strange symptoms and have traced it to a faulty internal switch in the exciter.

SEP2008

It was determined that one of the three elevation rotary joints has gone bad. It's been replaced with the good spare and is being returned to the US for repair/refurbishment.

AUG2008

University of Colorado, Boulder, graduate student Katelynn Greer finishes her six-week GSRE assignment working with the lidar systems. Katie's goals were to study PMCs and to test and characterize the the new polarization compensation components. In addition, she took over 100 hrs of usable data, including measurements of seven PMCs and evidence of aerosols from the eruption of the Okmok volcano in Alaska, all in spite of poor weather.

SR run will help determine if there are gravity waves caused by solar eclipse on 1 August.

JUL2008

Particle samplers near the site are installed by visitors from the German Weather Service, DWD (Deutscher Wetter Dienst), and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. The crew will perform periodic filter changes and posting.

JUN2008

After 12 years on-site, Eggert returns to Iceland -- he will be sorely missed. With the planned pull-out of DMI, Christian's position has disappeared but he has become an SRI employee and the new site supervisor.